From Good Sense to Good Pleasure: The First Use and Meaning of the Word “Literature”

• Main Author: Berat Açıl
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: İlmi Etüdler Derneği 2015-12-01
• Series: İnsan & Toplum
• Subjects: Literature; adab; eloquence; al-Kostantinî; Sealibî
• Online Access: http://www.insanvetoplum.org/index.php/IVT/article/view/313/254

The idea that the word “literature” (edebiyat) was derived from the Arabic word of “edeb” gained a prevalence in academy. Despite debates about how long this word has been used, it is a widely accepted claim that it started to be used as of the second half of the 19th century. Existing literature agrees that the word came into use in the 1880s in order to meet the French word of “litterature.” Despite this general consent, we found as a result of our research and new findings that the word was used both in the Ottoman and Arab world in much earlier centuries. We found that the word was used in two different works in Arab and Ottoman territories in the 11th and 16th centuries, respectively. The first one is a collection of biographies of poets and litteratures titled Yatimat al-dahr fi mahasin ahl al-asr, which was written by famous Arabic scholar specialized in language and rhetoric Abu Mansur Al-Tha’alibi who died in 1038. The second one is a political treatise titled “Lataif al-afkar va Kashif al-asrar, which al-Kostantinî presented to Ibrahim Pasha in 1529. So, as two instances from the Arab and Ottoman word clearly urge us, we argue it is beneficial to revise our ideas about the first use of the word.